Grass Valley, CA — Area senior Reynaldo M. Rodriguez has repeatedly failed an Internet CAPTCHA test which would have entitled him to a free 6 month subscription to Field and Stream magazine. Mr. Rodriguez, 74, was using the computer at his community’s “tech room” when he encountered the difficulty.
“So I received this notice in the mail saying I could have a free subscription if I just logged onto their website,” an exasperated Mr. Rodriguez said in a phone interview with The Fazzler. “So I gave them all my information and then it asked me if I was a robot. What does that even mean? Then they showed me a bunch of pictures that looked like street signs. I finally gave up. It’s not worth it.”
A CAPTCHA (a “backronym” for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”) is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. This user identification procedure has received many criticisms, especially from disabled people, but also from other people who feel that their everyday work is slowed down by distorted words that are difficult to read. It takes the average person approximately 10 seconds to solve a typical CAPTCHA.
“Oh shit,” lamented Mr. Rodriguez, “now I’m gonna have to talk to my asshole son-in-law James to help me. He’s real condescending and impatient.”
